This invention relates to an apparatus for processing seafood, more particularly, an apparatus suitable for cooking, rinsing and freezing seafood onboard ships.
The processing of crabs is typically achieved by using two steps: crabs are retrieved from crab pots and stored onboard small crabbing ships, and later transferred to a processing unit located either on land or on a large processing ship where the crabs are prepared for the market. The processing apparatus includes heavy and cumbersome conveyors and large open-topped tanks partially filled with processing fluids, all of which require considerable space onboard the ship. Moreover, it is most convenient and desirable to have the tanks and conveyors open to the atmosphere. Therefore, if the processing is done on ships, the processing equipment is ordinarily installed on an atmosphere-exposed upper deck of the ship. However, when the equipment is located on an upper deck, the processing must be accomplished in calm water for both ship stability and crew safety reasons. For example, in adverse sea conditions there is a substantial danger that hot cooking water will spill out the open-topped containers and burn crewmen as the processing ship rolls and pitches under the influence of the sea. Additionally, the location and weight of the processing apparatus and fluids on an upper deck, and the free-water effect associated with unenclosed, unfilled fluid containers can detrimentally affect the stability characteristics of the processing ship.
The current processing system requires that seaworthy, crab catching ships be used to retrieve the crab pots and store the crabs. Because the crabs will spoil very quickly after they die, the crabs must be kept alive onboard the crab catching ships. Care must be taken onboard the crab catching ships to ensure that enough seawater is circulated through the storage compartments, and that the crabs are not packed too tightly within the storage compartments to prevent the crabs on the bottom from being crushed. However, typically, the crab catchers desire to maximize the amount of crabs caught. Thus, the crabs may be kept just barely alive for a number of days before being transferred to a processing unit. Unfortunately, under these storage conditions, the quality of all of the crabmeat will be detrimentally affected.
When the crabs are transferred to the processing unit, they are killed and separated into two pieces at a butcher station, and then cleaned at the giller station. The crab pieces are then washed and placed on a conveyor which moves the crab pieces into a large, open-topped cooking container. The water in the cooking container is usually maintained at a constant temperature by piping steam into, and sometimes through, the container. After cooking, the crab pieces are transferred to a second conveyor which moves the crab pieces through a cooling and rinsing open-topped tank. The crab pieces are then loaded by hand into meshed freezing baskets moved by overhead conveyors and dropped into an open cold brine tank. When frozen, the crab pieces are removed from the brine tank and placed into closed containers to be stored in a cold storage or transported to destination by a refrigerated carrier.
It will be appreciated from the foregoing description, that the quality and quantity of crabmeat may be detrimentally affected because: the crabs may not be processed for up to two weeks after they are retrieved from the crab pots; the crabs are exposed to the atmosphere between the cooking, rinsing and freezing steps; some crabmeat will be lost (wasted) because of crabs dying prematurely; and the repeated handling and conveying of the crabmeat during the processing steps will partially disintegrate the crabmeat and result in wastage of the smaller crab pieces. Moreover, the relatively slow temperature changes that occur in the crabmeat during the conventional cooking and freezing steps may result in overcooking or undercooking of the meat, as well as a general deterioration of quality because of a high bacteria count.
Obviously, this prior art processing unit cannot be installed on the crab catching ships. The crab catching ships need most of the atmosphere-exposed, upper decks to store its many crab pots. Moreover, the stability of these smaller ships is already detrimentally affected by the storage of crab pots on the upper weather decks and cannot be further adversely affected by adding the prior art processing apparatus.
Therefore, it is an object of this invention to provide a new and improved apparatus for processing crab onboard ships.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a smaller, lightweight apparatus for processing crab that is adaptable for use on relatively small crab catching ships.
It is yet another object of this invention to provide a new and improved apparatus for processing crab wherein the crabs are processed when they come out of the sea and are not exposed to the atmosphere during the cooking, rinsing and freezing cycles.
It is yet another object of this invention to provide a new and improved apparatus for processing crab that will not detrimentally affect the stability of the ships on which they are used.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a processing apparatus that will significantly shorten the processing time to provide a higher quality end product and to allow a greater throughput of crabmeat with a given amount of processing apparatus.
It is a further object of this invention to provide crab processing apparatus that occupies a minimum of space on the upper decks.